French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered an “electric shock” to the NATO alliance and given it a new strategic clarity that it was lacking.
Macron, speaking to journalists as he launched his campaign for re-election, was responding to a question about whether he regretted describing NATO as “brain dead” around two years ago.
Macron said the situation in late 2019, when he made his remarks, was different from today, and that the alliance was indispensable for dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The war launched by [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin brings a clarification, and creates at our borders and on our European soil an unusual threat which gives a strategic clarification to NATO,” the French President said. “Yet, I continue to think that we need to rebuild a new European order of security, that the war today in Ukraine makes it even more indispensable.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said Russia's invasion of Ukraine could deliver an 'electroshock of awakening' to NATO.
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On Thursday, asked by a journalist of US political journalism outlet Politico if he "would reconsider his 2019 comments," Macron answered that he wants to initiate a “strategic clarification” of NATO’s role. A work in progress, he added.
Macron said that EU leaders will “conclude” work on the EU’s “strategic compass," France's shorthand for strengthening the Union's military capabilities during a EU Council meeting in Brussels next week.
He also pointed out that an upcoming NATO summit in June will focus on “redefining the alliance’s frameworks.”
NATO indeed started an overhaul of its functioning. In 2020, the organization's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg created an expert group to explore a future direction of NATO, resulting in the report Nato 2030 - United for a New Era.
Stoltenberg himself remarked earlier this month that Russia’s invasion into Ukraine had forced the military alliance to launch "an urgent rethink" of its long-term outlook.
(With agencies)
